Value of $100 in 1958, adjusted to 1976

What happened to prices between 1958 and 1976

Between 1958 and 1976, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.9 to 56.9. Cumulatively, prices increased 96.9%, which works out to an average of 3.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1958 bought what $0.51 buys in 1976.

Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from 1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4 cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932. Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before. Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913 level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.

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The destination year: 1976

Consumer prices rose 5.8% in 1976, the calmest pace since 1972, as the economy pulled out of the 1973-75 recession and price growth settled to roughly half its 1974 peak. The recovery gave Americans room to celebrate: tall ships filled New York Harbor and fireworks lit cities nationwide on July 4 for the country’s bicentennial, a rare moment of shared celebration after Vietnam and Watergate. Politically, Jimmy Carter, a former Georgia governor running as a Washington outsider, defeated incumbent Gerald Ford that November, campaigning on restoring trust in government and bringing down inflation and unemployment together. In a California garage, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer that April to sell the Apple I, a bare circuit board aimed at electronics hobbyists, a business that looked far from consequential at the time. First-class postage, which had risen to 13 cents that past December 31, held there through the year, the longest stretch without a rate change since the Postal Service’s creation. A median household earned $12,686 in 1976, a new home sold for a median $44,200, and gas averaged 59 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 474.7% above their 1913 level, a calm interlude before inflation turned back up.

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